It can be argued that a worldwide organizational infrastructure for sport has existed for some time and that, superficially at least, this has facilitated the development of a global sporting culture. Key features of the global sports infrastructure include, first, the emergence of unified international sports federations as the arbiters of the rules of individual sports and as the agents of sports development. Increasingly, it is the internationalfederations that coordinate policy regarding broadcasting fees and antidoping through liaison with other global sports bodies such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). Governments have also developed an international framework for discussing sports issues, most fully developed in Europe through the European Union and the Council of Europe. Second, there are now a number of firmly established global sports events, either

Barrie Houlihan is with the School of Social Sciences, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke on Trent, ST4 2DE, UK.

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single-sport world championships and professional circuits, or major multisport events such as the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games, organized by both governments and the global sports bodies. Finally, the infrastructure of globalization is completed by the rapid development of a major international sports goods industry and the enthusiastic embracing by sport of the media and of television in particular. Sponsors can feel confident that when the World Cup final or one of the blue riband Olympic events is being broadcast something approaching a quarter of the world's adult population will be watching. However, being able to point out the major features of a global organizational infrastructure for sport is a long way from being able to claim that sport is part of a process of cultural globalization, for although there has been much discussion of the attributes and nature of globalization in relation to sport, progress toward a consensus about the nature and significance of the process has been slow. In order to assess the utility of the concept for the study...